


Naked Personalities

by Zandra_Court



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 08:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zandra_Court/pseuds/Zandra_Court
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Who actually shot Janice Drew in <i>The Specialist</i>?  An aftermath story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naked Personalities

_Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. ~ C. S. Lewis_

 

Hutch sat at the typewriter staring at it. His report on Alexander Drew’s arrest had stalled. What it needed to say was how he and Starsky had been called to the old oil field by Drew to trade themselves for Officer Sally Hagen and how they were able to finally arrest him and that he was remanded into the custody of Arthur Cole, Central Intelligence Agency. 

What he wanted it to say was how the US government had trained a man to become a skilled assassin; who was so mentally broken from his work that he believed the accidental shooting of his wife was a national conspiracy to kill him. Drew had killed two of the officers involved and had set his sights on Hutch and his partner as the only two remaining officers involved in the shooting death of Janice Drew.

Part of what was making this report so hard to type was that just three hours ago, word had come that Alexander Drew had killed himself while in the custody of Arthur Cole. Dobey had figured Drew was CIA or NSA, but they had no way of knowing for sure. 

Hutch’d told his Captain of his frustration at arresting the wrong man. Not because Drew wasn’t guilty, but because of who had made him that way. A “failed government experiment” was how Cole had referred to it. Where was the accountability for having created this monster to begin with? For giving him access the best weapons, technology and training and then turning him loose into society. For teaching him how to kill people in imaginative and untraceable ways. Someone should have to pay for that.

Then Starsky had made an observation that sat in Hutch’s belly like a stone. “I guess we’re going to have to take Cole’s word for it that it was suicide.” 

Would the government really do that? Would they make this man like he was and then just extinguish him when he became too much of a threat? Given everything they’d learned in the last few days, Starsky’s read on what the government would likely do with Drew seemed more apt to be true than not. The weight of it all was making the typing of his report impossible right now.

“You want me to finish it?” Starsky asked him as he sat down at the desk next to him.

“I just don’t get it, Starsk. How could the government do something like this and get away with it?” Hutch turned towards his partner, his arm pressed against the other man’s. Things were always easier when they were touching, which is why they touched a lot.

“I think that your mid-west Americanism is just breaking open, buddy. Being in the Army, goin’ to ‘Nam; makes it hard to keep rose colored glasses on about what our country is and isn’t capable of doing. Guys like Drew ain’t new. Maybe how they made him that way was, but that don’t mean our government hasn’t been turning out men like him for generations.”

“Thanks. That’s really helping.” Hutch leaned back in the desk chair and ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry, pal, but what do you want me to say? And how is the tragedy of Alexander Drew any different from any one of the street kids we pop who’ve been forced into gang life or the OD’d hooker who turned tricks to feed her arm because some pimp junked her out?”

“I guess it’s not. But when I think about how good he was at undercover…how easily he fooled those officers and our own precinct garage team…what makes us so different?”

Starsky laid his arm across his best friend’s shoulders and pulled him closer, “We do. I don’t go down the dark path because I know you’re there, tethering me to the way the world should work. This is gonna hurt for while, but then, it’ll hurt less.” Hutch nodded at him, knowing that the only way he’d made it through the worst experiences of his life; divorce, addiction, Abby, Gillian... he’d survived them because Starsky had been there to make sure he did.

As they sat there, Captain Dobey walked up, file in hand. “If you haven’t finished the report on the Drew case, I have more information for you to add. Ballistics just came back.”

In the shootout, Janice Drew had been in the wrong place at the wrong time: caught in the cross-fire in a crowded market square. Preliminary crime scene analysis felt that it was a high probability that she’d been shot by one of the officers on the scene and not by one of the two suspects who had opened fire when they saw Starsky and Hutch chasing them. It was that information that triggered Drew to start hunting the four officers who'd been there.

Starsky pulled his arm off Hutch’s shoulders and sat up. “Was it from a department gun?” 

“’Fraid so.” Dobey opened the file and read, “The projectile recovered from Janice Drew was fired from a .357 Magnum revolver. Said projectile was compared to fired rounds taken from all officers on scene and two handguns booked into evidence. Round is deemed to have come from the weapon issued to Detective Sergeant Kenneth Hutchinson, Bay City Police Department.”

“Well, this day just keeps getting better.” Hutch slumped lower in his chair while his partner sat quietly, resting a hand on his arm.

“Internal Affairs told me they don’t intend to do anything more with this, Hutch. It’s just information for the file. Even without the ballistics, they had already found the use of force to be within acceptable grounds,” his Captain assured him.

“Acceptable force.” Hutch shook his head. “Glad to know that when I kill people, it’s acceptable.”

Dobey closed the file and sighed. “Look, why don’t you boys take the rest of the shift off.”

“Thanks Cap’n” Starsky pulled on Hutch’s arm, getting him to stand up. Hutch nodded and walked to the door of the squad room, Starsky on his heels. As Hutch went through the glass door, Dobey said, “Starsky, hold up a second.”

“Yes, Cap’n?”

“Department regulations require Hutch be observed for the next 48 hours. I’m sure he’d rather have you than the department psychologist.”

“Sure thing, Cap’n. I wouldn’t have left him anyway, but you have my word.”

Dobey nodded and Starsky turned and ran to catch up to his partner.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Standing at their lockers, Starsky asked, “Wanna go to Huggy’s?”

“Not really. I think I just wanna go home.”

“OK. We could get Chinese take-out.”

“Nah, I’ll just make myself some soup.”

“You got chicken noodle? I love chicken noodle!”

“Starsk, you know I love you, but I just wanna go home and go to bed.”

“I know. But I gotta go with you. It’s either me or the department shrink. And I’m pretty sure he don’t like chicken noodle.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.” Janice Drew wasn’t the first person he’d killed in the line of duty. _She was just the first one who hadn’t deserved it._ That thought caught in his mind. Why did he get to decide who deserved it?

“You’re not as pretty as Kelly Whitaker, but I guess you’ll do.” Hutch said as he zipped up his duffel and shut his locker door.

“Who’s Kelly Whitaker?” Starsky asked as they walked out to his car.

“She was the girl from church my parents would hire to baby-sit me when I was a kid.”

“I ain’t your babysitter. We’re hangin’ out like always. I just don’t go home.”

“You better not hog the bathroom.”

“Please, shaving alone takes me twice as long as you. You wanna go first, get up earlier.”

“Oh, I’ll get up early. To run.”

Starsky groaned. “You don’t gotta run everyday, y’know.” He was already regretting having to have eyes on Hutch constantly.

Hutch smirked at him, “If I’m gonna have a Starsky-shadow for the next 48, then at least I’m gonna get you to exercise.”

“I could just tie you to a chair for two days y’know. I could see if Nancy wants to go bowling.”

“Bingo!” Hutch shouted, which made Starsky laugh hard. 

“Sports aren’t really her thing.” He kept laughing as he added, “But she’s got many other talents going for her.”

“I don’t wanna know, Gordo. Let’s get Chinese after all.”

“Sounds good.”  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was one in the morning. Hutch had already been awake when he heard his partner get up off the couch and go to the bathroom. His bedroom didn’t actually have a door, so he was aware of every move his partner made out on the couch of his small apartment.

When the door opened and the light from the bathroom flicked off, he called, “Starsk?”

“Yeah? You OK?” Starsky walked around the corner from the bathroom and stood at the entry to the small alcove that was Hutch’s bedroom.

“Talk to me about Lonnie.”

Starsky was quiet for a moment. He tried not to think about the 16 year old whose life he took. But he knew why Hutch was asking, so he walked over and laid down next to his partner on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

“First, you play ‘What if’ with yourself. ‘What if I hadn’t fired?’ ‘What if I'd shot him somewhere other than his chest.’ ‘What if I'd called in sick that day.’ 

“You play that game for awhile until you almost can’t remember what it is that you really did because the alternate scenarios play over and over so much in your head, you start to think that maybe they happened instead.

“Then there’ll be the first time you have to go back to the scene. Did you notice how for months I would take 14th, just so I wouldn’t have to drive by the liquor store?

“I noticed.” Hutch said. He mirrored his partner’s body position, laying flat on his back, arms folded over his belly, staring up.

“Well, that works for a bit, until you get called out and have to go because you can’t tell Dispatch that you don’t wanna answer that call or you’ll have nightmares for the next week.”

Hutch looked over at him. He didn’t know about the nightmares. It made him sad that Starsky had gone through all that last year and he’d never said anything. There probably wasn’t anything he could have done to help, but he wished he’d been able to try.

“Do you still have nightmares?” 

“Sometimes, but about other things now.” He didn’t want to tell his partner that his nightmares now were mostly about Gillian.

“Is it wrong that I keep wondering why Drew didn’t pull her down? I want so badly to blame him right now. But back before it was me that killed her, I wanted to exonerate him and blame the government. I want to blame everyone but myself.”

“Don’t worry too much about that. The blame will come. I think that’s the worst part. When you fully realize that it was just you; your gun, your finger, your choices that ended the life of someone you never intended to hurt. That’s when you break.”

Hutch rolled onto his side, towards his partner. “Then?”

Starsky looked over at him. “Then, I look at you. I remember all you’ve gone through. I remember your strength. I remember how we work and the bad guys we bring down. I see myself through your eyes and I can forgive myself a little. Then a little more. And I find my way back by following you.”

Falling back against the bed, Hutch choked up some as he said, “Thanks, buddy.”

“No problem.” Starsky started to get up to head back to the couch.

“Starsk, stay. Please. It helps.”

“Sure, Blondie. Your bed’s more comfortable anyway.”

The two men lay side by side and as Hutch heard Starsky’s breathing slow and fall into a steady pattern of sleep, he finally felt like he could close his eyes and risk the darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my daughter, who after watching the episode asked me, "But which of them really shot her?" I was chagrined that the question had never occurred to me before.


End file.
